The Budget Challenge Blog

Elder High School teacher Joe Schoenfeld (Cincinnati, Ohio) gave us his insight into how Budget Challenge impacts his students and how Eagle Saving Bank Charitable Foundation has made it possible for his students to participate in Budget Challenge. “Budget Challenge brings a lot of life and energy to our class. Without a doubt, my favorite aspects of the Budget Challenge are the hands-on nature of the simulation and the competition. The students are actively engaged in the simulation and get great practice reading invoices, writing checks, creating a budget and making financial decisions.”

We built a better stock market game AND it is focused on student outcomes, not entertainment It is now mid-summer 2021 and this blog post is about how we designed and built not just a better stock market game, but the most innovative tool for teaching effective investing. We performed a complete tear-down and rebuild of the classic stock market game with the belief that we could correct its obvious issues and optimize the experience for helping students’ financial futures.

Dr. Patricia Page who has her graduate degrees in Business Administration and Education, and a PhD specializing in Educational Technology, is an avid user of Budget Challenge. She is a teacher at East Greenwich High School in Rhode Island. Dr. Page has recently shared her perspective on Budget Challenge and financial literacy with us.

John Yoho a Career & Technology Education teacher and Virtual Learning Mentor at Brunswick High, in Frederick County, Maryland, is a long time user of Budget Challenge. For several years, thousands of students have had the opportunity to participate in the program thanks to the generosity of Jennifer Allen. Her company, J Allen and Associates CPA has provided full funding for all high schools in the entire Frederick County Public School District to participate in Budget Challenge. He recently shared the impact that the simulation has had on his students throughout the years. "I've been teaching personal finance for almost ten years and Budget Challenge is by far the best thing that I have found for navigating these topics and skills with students. I truly believe that Budget Challenge is having a huge impact on our students and will hopefully save them time, money, and potentially stressful situations moving into adulthood!"

New Jersey has some of most rigorous financial literacy standards of any state requiring students to apply their knowledge. Budget Challenge meets every standard.

Robinhood and GameStop: young investors or young gamblers? It has been one of the biggest investing stories in 2021 and possibly the entire pandemic. It is now mid-March of 2021 and some time has passed to reflect upon what happened and more importantly, why?

David Edelman shared his vast Budget Challenge knowledge with us. He has been a Social Studies teacher and Peer Instructional Coach in NYC Public Schools for over a decade. David provides instructional coaching, mentoring and professional learning to colleagues, in addition to teaching Government & Economics classes. His classroom serves as a learning lab and demonstration classroom to foster inter and intra school collaboration. David teaches at Union Square Academy for Health Sciences (USA) a new, unscreened, public high school with a Career & Technical Education focus in NY, NY.

Kambri Harland, a Counselor and Financial Literacy Teacher, at Boise City High School in Boise City, OK shared her experience with us. This is my 8th year doing the Budget Challenge. This is by far one of the best tools out there to give students a true understanding of what "Life" is like when it comes to managing money and paying bills.

Teachers now have the ability to customize their classes' default curriculum and quiz schedule. By default, each simulation has units and their accompanying quizzes opening in a staggered fashion each week starting on Thursdays. To support as much flexibility as possible, all quizzes are open to take until the last day of the simulation.

Texas set a high bar for a financial literacy elective class. Guess what program exceeds it?